"The Bottom" by Ardelle ~Dedicated to all the usual suspects~ Part Four: One Last Hope ~Evening on the beach. The waves gently crashing against the brilliantly white sand. Night is coming, and the sky is a beautiful shade of blue above the gold and mauve sunset. Stars have begun to appear. Stars...it's been so long since I've seen the stars...I used to be damn sick of them. But more beautiful stands B'Elanna, in a flowing white dress, glowing ethereal like some kind of an angel. She is an angel..."Want to go for a sail?" she says, and of course I agree. By the time we're out on the water all the stars are out, and we point out different shapes and patterns they make. So happy. Then clouds start rushing in, although there's no wind at all. Lightning strikes the boat, and I fall out, into the deep, deep, dark sea that used to intrigue me so. I'm trapped. She's engulfed in the sacrificial flames. B'Elanna, oh B'Elanna!!!~ "Calm down Tom," Harry Kim cried, shaking his old friend. "It's just a dream, c'mon!" "Harry?" "Last time I checked. Sorry, I'm not B'Elanna." "You...?" Tom could find no end to the sentence he started. "You were screaming her name like murder." "It probably _is_ murder," Tom snapped. "B'Elanna's as good as dead out there!" "And in here we're not?" Tom stared at him. Harry wasn't usually this cynical. "Face the facts, Tom, we're all going to die." "How can you talk like that?" Tom's voice raised hysterically. "There's always hope! There's always been hope!" "Not this time," said Harry darkly. "All we can do is wait." "I can't. B'Elanna's already dead, I'm sure of it. I'd rather die now!" "So would I. I'd just have it over with. Unfortunately, that's up to the guard's cruel whimsy." "If they wait much longer I'll die anyway," Tom whispered. "Of a broken heart." Harry did not hear. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "In skies of frozen snow Where winds of sadness roam Red sun's burning low You were my home Where I would go... Love invites One last call When death from life Begins to fall... Tears Now unfold How can I now Alone grow old Dusty Stars Shed their lights When death from life Slips silently to the night." -- Deirdre's Lament, from "The Legend of Deirdre" adapted from the Gaelic by John Stuart Dick ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No one in the cellar moved. All eyes were on Chopper. He'd know what to do, he'd know, he always did. Chopper shivered under the rebels' gazes. He didn't know what to do. "I suppose we ought to go out there and see what happened," he said shakily. Carefully he unlatched the cellar door, which made a huge creak as he opened it. Poking his head out of the cellar, Chopper glanced about suspiciously. There was no one to be seen on the streets. Now he was worried. What could have happened? And more importantly, where was Flint? He regretted everything he said already. Where was she? Where was she? The sound of the shot rang in his head. What if she was dead? Chopper would never forgive himself. He'd already lost _one_ of his band. He scanned the narrow, dusty brown street. Nothing left but a pile of grayish rubbish some one had discarded...Something clicked in Chopper's head, and he ran to it. He peeled back one of the thin, ragged layers. And as he suspected, there lie Flint, eyes closed. Dark, thin blood seeping from the wound on her chest. Immediately Chopper felt for a pulse. Barely a flutter. Chopper sobbed, unsure what to do. B'Elanna placed a hand on his shoulder. She could feel him quake. He refused to look up, at any of them. His white, grime-streaked hair fell against his face. Dirty, glimmering rivulets trickled through the strands. "We should take her down to safety," Chopper said, voice sounding strangely hollow. "Yes," B'Elanna complied slowly. "Chopper...There may be a way for her to get proper medical attention." "How?" he asked, voice cracking. He was seeming less and less the prince B'Elanna first saw him as. "I'll help you carry her down," she said. "Then I'll explain everything. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We shake our fists and say, 'Well good golly we're mad That God kills children with our very own hands' We claim innocence and not to understand Or do we, do we?" -- Jewel, "Do You" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eyret was finding it harder and harder to sleep at night. He'd always followed the religion. Everyone had. He attended the daily sacrifices faithfully. He'd cheered the executioners on, for a hundred and five years, all his life. The ceremony hadn't changed. He hadn't changed. The criminals, the wicked criminals, hadn't changed. Until now. Maybe it was merely that since two months ago, he had help sentence those criminals. He'd known those criminals. Those off-worlders, soon to be sacrificed before the Layhara. They'd been nice. He'd lured them and turned them in for the promise of salvation by Layhara. Why did he feel so horrible? He'd seen recordings of the uprising. It moved him to tears. Those young folk, so intent, yet without any hope. The shooting of the little girl...And how everyone had left the street, left her to die. Eyret had always followed the religion, but now he wondered if it would bring him any salvation from the One God, from Layhara. Maybe what religion one practiced had nothing to do with His will. Maybe these mass murderers, so called "followers" would go to the seventh underworld, not these innocent "criminals." Eyret kneeled and prayed for those young rebels. He had a family, a mate. To rebel alone would bring him death, and it would bring them pain. He could do nothing but pray. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We all had illusions in our heads We all had our minds made up for us We had to believe in something So we did it We all had our reasons to be there We all had a thing or two to learn We had to believe in something So we did it." -- Alanis Morisette, "Forgiven" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Here's the plan," said B'Elanna. "This is pretty risky, and I'm going to have to ask a few things of you guys. If you get caught, you _cannot_ tell what you know. It isn't physically possible. If we get caught, it's over. For all of us. There will be no rebellion." "That's a little bit cryptic, isn't it?" commented Pei. "Only as cryptic as the situation is, Pei," replied B'Elanna. "Fingers?" The teenage Zelm stepped forward boldly. "Whatever it is you want with me, I will gladly follow," he said. His twin, Greaser, readily agreed. Then the rest of them did. "Can you hack into a local terminal and find out about what happened to Voyager? It's probably still docked here, and they may not even be able to get onto it." He nodded with a cocky smile. "No problem-o." A wave of sadness washed over B'Elanna, reminded of her Tom. She did not let it show. The rebels needed a leader, with Chopper out of rank. "If they've gotten onto it I'm gonna need the access codes. Greaser?" She stepped forward. "You'll be expected to get past the guards. I can draw you a map of the Jeffries tubes you'll have to crawl through and the corridors you'll need to find. I'd have some one else do it but they're easier for bipeds, and you're the smallest of us now." Greaser nodded, saying nothing. "Eventually you'll get to sick bay and you'll need to activate the EMS. Don't be frightened by him, he's a hologram. Get him to beam us all directly to sickbay. With my comm badge I think he should be able to. He'll be able to treat Flint." B'Elanna aimed that in Chopper's direction. "On the ship we can fight." *Somehow,* she did not say aloud. "Everyone else, I need you guys to, as discreetly as possible, get a hold of some more weapons." "It took us months to last time!" Pei pointed out. "And now we're in hiding." "I know, but we'll only need one or two. There are weapons, better weapons, aboard Voyager." "If they're so great how come everyone on board got taken?" Pei shot back. "I don't know," said B'Elanna. "But we won't let it happen to us. We know the enemy." Flint moaned and stirred. All eyes were on her. "Well, what're you waiting for?!" B'Elanna demanded. "Get going! And _be careful_!" Quickly averting their eyes, the rebels left. B'Elanna walked to Chopper's side. Flint tossed and turned, muttering in her feverish sleep. Chopper watched her anxiously. "I'm worried," he whispered to B'Elanna. "Her wound is infected." "We'll get her out okay," B'Elanna assured him. "You don't understand," Chopper whispered back, "Within a day or so it will--" "Never mind," B'Elanna interrupted. "We'll get her to the Doc before then." Chopper nodded but did not agree. He sighed. "If only things were different." "They aren't. Flint always reminded us of that." "It burns me to think, that, walking right outside that door are people who could help Flint. But...it can't be like that. For no good reason at all we can't have anything. It's not fair." B'Elanna hugged him softly. "Maybe not," she said, "But we're going to even the odds." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Can I graduate, Can I look into the faces that I meet, Can I get my punk-ass off the street, I've been living on for so long, Can I graduate, To the bastard talking down to me, Your whipping boy calamity, Cross your fingers, I'm going to knock it all down." -- Third Eye Blind, "Graduate" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Jeffries tube was dim and Greaser was sure if she saw anyone she'd jump right out of her skin. *Be brave,* she told herself, *Be brave. For Flint, for B'Elanna, for Chopper, for Fingers, for Wires.* Fingers was so much more brave than she. Why had they not asked her twin to slip past the guards and activate the...whatever. B'Elanna had written it down for her. Actually, B'Elanna told Chopper and he did. So many directions... Slipping past the guards had been easy. She was so slight they had mistaken her passing for that of a zephyr. Greaser hadn't even been worried about that part. Now her heart was thumping in her throat and throbbing in her ears. What if she messed up? All would be lost. All! Greaser already had the death of her little brother on her head... She crawled into the...what had B'Elanna called it? A sick sea? A sick lake? A sick pier? Sickbay. Hands shaking, Greaser drew a scrap of soiled paper from the pockets of her rucksack-like tunic. "C-c-computer? A-a-activate Em-m-mergency M-m-medical H-hologram." Suddenly, before her, a huge man materialized right in front of her. Greaser stifled a shriek and dove under one of the biobeds. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," the strange man said, looking around. His voice sounded friendly enough. A bit curt, but helpful. And he wasn't really bigger than B'Elanna, and a lot smaller than a full-grown Delnr. He was smaller than a half-grown one. Without coming out from under the table, Greaser spoke up. "B-b-b..." "Yes," said the hologram, walking up to her. "Are you hurt? Where's the rest of the crew? Did you activate me?" Greaser shivered. Oh, why had B'Elanna asked her to do this? She so hated confrontations. Slowly, cautiously, she stood up. "B-b-b...B'Elanna...sent me...for help...said you would...transport...to sickbay...?" Still trembling, Greaser looked up at the hologram hopefully. "Using h-her c-c-comm b-b-badge?" "Please, don't be afraid of me. I'm a trained medical professional. B'Elanna is my friend. She wouldn't send you to me unless she trusted me, would she?" He held a funny thing in his hand, with blinking lights Greaser shook her head no. "You've gotta help us!" she blurted. "We're all alone and all of the off-world crew is going to be killed except B'Elanna but the rebellion didn't work and now they wanna kill us and Flint is hurt real bad and B'Elanna said you could help us!" Greaser paused for breath, gazing hopefully up at him. "Please, please, please help us!" "How can I say no to that," the hologram muttered under his breath. "You are suffering from malnutrition. Sit still, and I will do as you ask." Greaser obliged him and he put something cold against her neck that startled her. She shrieked and nearly ran. "Calm down, that was just a supplement." Walking over to the table with lights on it, he tapped it with the ease of a seasoned musician playing a sayro harp. B'Elanna and the rest of the rebels suddenly appeared in sickbay. By now Greaser was getting used to these sudden shocks and did not shriek. Chopper and B'Elanna laid Flint out on the main biobed. "This one needs immediate attention," B'Elanna said. "She's suffering from a gun wound and now she's got some kinda infection." The Doctor immediately went to work on her. "Whatever are you wearing B'Elanna? Where's the rest of the crew? Who are these people?" "It's a long story," B'Elanna said, tired. "We've got time," said the doctor, not taking an eye off his work. "No," said Chopper, "We haven't got any time." Disclaimer: The story of mine, the quotes and Star Trek characters are not. By now you may have figured that out.